Austrostipa from the Latin 'auster' meaning south and the genus Stipa, referring to the genus being allied to Stipa but restricted to Australia. Hemipogon from the Greek 'hemi' meaning half and 'pogon' meaning beard, referring to its lemma with shorter hairs towards the apex.

Distribution:

Found in the southern part of South Australia, south of the Gammon Ranges growing on sand and clay in mallee scrub, woodland, heathland and grassland. Also found in Western Australia and Victoria.

Status:

Native. Common in South Australia. Rare in Victoria. Common in Western Australia.

Plant description:

Tufted perennial grass to 1 m high with culms unbranched and pubescent nodes. Leaves scabrid, sparsely pubescent with blade weakly to strongly inrolled, to 20 cm long and 3 mm wide. Inflorescence a loosely contracted panicle to 25 cm long, with purplish or green glumes to 20 mm long, upper glumes to 15 mm long. Flowering between September and February.

Red-brown lemma to 7.5 mm long with finely granular surface and covered in white to golden hairs; callus long straight sharp to 3 mm long; awn twice bent to 60 mm long with bristle sometime curved; column densely plumose with a spiralling line of hairs to 4 mm long up the nerve; palea about equal to lemma, with a line of hairs down the centre.

Seed type:

Yellow-brown ellipsoid grain to 4 mm long within the lemma.

Embryo type:

Lateral.

Seed collecting:

Use your hands to gently strip the seeds (lemma) off the mature fruiting spike, those that are turning brown. Mature seeds will come off easily compare to the immature seeds that remain on the spike. Alternatively, you can break off the whole fruit spike to allow some of the seeds to mature further.

Seed cleaning:

Place the seeds/spike in a tray and leave to dry for two weeks. No further cleaning is required if only seed collected. If seed spikes collected, use hand to strip off the mature seeds. Store the seeds with a desiccant such as dried silica beads or dry rice, in an air tight container in a cool and dry place.

Seed viability:

Viability of grass seeds could be very viable, depending on time of seed collections and seasonal conditions. From two collections, the seed viability was average to high, ranging from 70% to 85%.

Seeds stored:

Location

No. of seeds(weight grams)

Numberof plants

Datecollected

Collection numberCollection location

Datestored

% Viability

Storagetemperature

BGA

4000 (11.3 g)

161

25-Nov-2004

PJA 91Eyre Peninsula

28-Mar-2006

85%

BGA MSB

1850 (4.96 g)1850 (5.06 g)

>100

9-Nov-2004

MKJ 41Eyre Peninsula

28-Mar-2006

70%

Location: BGA — the seeds are stored at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, MSB — the seeds are stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, Kew, England.Number of plants: This is the number of plants from which the seeds were collected.Collection location: The Herbarium of South Australia's region name.% Viability: Percentage of filled healthy seeds determined by a cut test or x-ray.